gosh, joseph, and I was on my way out…
As to your grammatical question- When you read “Jom’ in hebrew, it has a ‘yud” – a consonant, and then a “Yud’, a vowel. “Y” is a vowel and “j” is a consonant. Hence, when using the English letter in transliteration, I follow the rule.( Interestingly, matisYohu may be more correct in this case) But really, this is an obscure discussion that is not exactly at the top of my agenda.
Concerning where my father A”H lived during the war. He lived in Transylvania- then Rumania- and was saved for the simple reason that part of Transylvania became part of Rumania after WWI. The other part remained Hungarian and the Jews were deported -unfortunately- in 1944.Many members of my family were part of these Kedoshim. My father A”H knew many of the people I mentioned. It was quite common to cross from Romania to Hungary before the end of the war, as both supported Nazi germany till rumania made a volte-face in 1944.
I imagine that you refer to Zalman’s question concerning the people who were told to stay in Europe in WWII. I have personally spoken to Survivors who told me that most rebbes and Rabbonim advised them not to leave Europe for Eretz ysroel or even America, a sensible advice during those times. Sadly, it had tragic results. By the way, if you have a chance to read the (uncensored) Bilgurayer rebbe’s words to the Hungarian jews in the name of his brother of the Belzer rebbe zz’lin in Budapest, you will see the same pattern.
If you speak to Rebbes today and ask them the question as to how was this possible (that gedolim could not see the truth), they will tell you that Hakodesh Boruch Hu took away the capacity of Gedolim to know and see the truth. It was a “hester ponim” for which we have no answer. This has been a civil dialogue so I will not explore the reasons given POST-war for that “Hester ponim” by various people.
Well, there may yet be hope for us Yidden, as we have been able to have a civil discourse!